Bude, Coast and Canal

I was surprised recently by discovering it only took 1 hours 15 minutes to get to Bude from Plymouth.  I had always assumed it was much further away.  I still did not quite believe the AA so we decided to check it out for ourselves.  We drove to Widemouth Sands, which is 2 miles west of Bude and it took us 1 hour 15 minutes, so had to admit that the AA was pretty acurate.

We anticipated that the car park by the beach at Widemouth would be expensive so drove past it to a car park on the cliff overlooking the beach.  We were very pleased when we got there to discover it was a free car park.  The car park led right on to the SW Coast Path and we were soon walking towards Bude.  The views were lovely, but probably been better it the tide had not been so low exposing all the rocks.  There was some heather and gorse in blossom on the cliff tops, but not as much as I had hoped.

The coast path was undulating, but there were not any really steep inclines.  Soon we were on the cliffs overlooking the beach at Bude, where we stopped for our lunch.

We proceeded to walk into Bude and crossed the canal to divert into the Heritage Centre which is situated in Bude Castle.  There was some lovely art work on display in the galleries here and the area around was attractively laid out gardens.  We were also impressed with the small craft shops along the edge of the canal.  After buying an icecream (and not been ripped off pricewise, which was refreshing) we started to walk along the towpath.  This was an excellent pathway and it was good to see people enjoying boating and canoeing along.  After passing a lock there were no more boats, and it was very tranquil.

After a couple of miles we came to Helebridge.  There was a large tea rooms here with activities for children, but we did not stop but headed across fields to return to Widemouth.

This had been an excellent walk and one we would repeat again.  Full details can be founds at http://www.southwestcoastpath.com/walksdb/34/